When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
Cree Prophecy

Sunday, July 18, 2010

The clerks and secretaries who worked in the Atomic Energy Commission offices in Grand Junction during World War II and later during the Cold War handled ore samples and were frequently in and around milling products.

One of them, Patie Claypoole of Grand Junction, has developed a pulmonary fibrosis, a condition for which she could receive a compassionate payment from the federal government and medical care, except for one thing.

She wasn’t a miner, miller or ore hauler, three occupations compensated in the 1991 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

As a federal employee, Claypoole is ineligible for any payments under current federal law, as she has been informed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which administers the compensation program.

Proposed revisions to the law also don’t take account of her circumstances, and her letters to federal legislators have gone unheeded, Claypoole said.

Claypoole, who has difficulty speaking because of unrelated health issues, is not alone, she said.

Other women who worked in the Grand Junction offices of the former Atomic Energy Commission have been diagnosed with diseases that would be compensable under the radiation exposure compensation law and related legislation, except for the fact they were employed by the federal government, said Bill Chenoweth, a former federal employee who has worked under contract to the Justice Department to help administer the compassionate payments.

Had Claypoole worked for any of a string of federal contractors employed in milling in Grand Junction, “She would have been covered,” Chenoweth said.

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M, has introduced legislation that would include occupations such as core drillers, who drilled into the dusty Colorado Plateau to find uranium ore deposits, as compensable occupations. One core driller who suffered from silicosis and pulmonary fibrosis, Tom Green of Price, Utah, died this spring before Congress could act on the proposed revisions.

The original compensation act acknowledged the contributions of uranium miners to the United States’ Cold War effort. It offered $100,000 to miners suffering from terminal diseases related to radiation exposure, including emphysema, certain lung cancers and other illnesses.

Legislation adopted in 2000 increased the amount of the compassionate payment to $150,000 and added millers and ore haulers to the list of occupations for which compensation was available.

The Udall measure, S. 3224, also would set aside money for an epidemiological study of the health effects on families of uranium workers and residents of uranium-development communities.

Email the Governor: http://www.governor.virginia.gov
Mailing Address: Office of the Governor, Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor , 1111 East Broad Street , Richmond, Virginia 23219
Phone Numbers: Office: (804) 786-2211, Fax: (804) 371-6351
TTY/TDD (For the deaf or hard-of-hearing): 1-800-828-1120, or 711 :
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/CommunityRelations/
SB1138/HB1790 - Nuclear Energy Consortium bills headed to VA Governor Bob McDonnell -
We do not want more Nuclear Power in VA, nuke power is not green or clean, starts with uranium mining to nuke rods which last 4ever!
The General wording allows for a lack of transparency and public accountability, and that that may have been deliberately written into the bill to give VNECA unchecked powers, including the authority and power to promote and expand cradle to grave nuclear industries using taxpayer’s monies for grants.
SB 1138 Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority;
Introduced by: Jeffrey L. McWaters
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+sum+SB1138

SUBSCRIBE to VA Against Uranium Mining Blog Now ! Keep up with latest info delivered to your email!

Pollution In Local Drinking Water in Goliad County, TX after Uranium Mining

Down The Yellow Cake Road

A teaser for a documentary that tells the story of a corrupt government, unconscionable greed and a policy of destruction aimed at the Aboriginal Homelands of Indigenous People from the 1940's unti...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srVjPp1TwdA